In solid preparations such as medicines, agricultural chemicals, fertilizers, feed products, food products, industrial products and cosmetic products, adding β-glucan powder such as micro crystalline cellulose and cellulose powder to an active ingredient to produce preparation can imparts binding property and disintegrability to the active ingredient. Such a preparation has advantages effects such that the shape of the preparation such as tablets and granules can be maintained, and that medical benefits of an active ingredient can be effectively produced since the preparation rapidly disintegrates in the digestive tract.
Of micro crystalline celluloses, one having excellent compactibility has the following advantages. Since it can be made into tablets at low compression pressure, the activity of an active ingredient, which tends to be inactivated by the compression pressure, can be maintained; film-coated granules-containing tablets can be formed; since it contributes to hardness of tablets in a small amount, a bulky active ingredient and a preparation containing various types of active ingredients can be made into tablets, in some cases, small-size tablets can be made; a support property of a liquid ingredient is superior; and damage caused by compression pressure can be suppressed.
However, a conventional micro crystalline cellulose and a cellulose powder had a problem. Since they have a highly reactive reducing group (carbonyl group) at a reducing end, the amino-carbonyl reaction (Maillard reaction) may take place between the reducing end and a terminal amino group of an active ingredient to produce an amino carbonyl bond and the bond causes color, and therefore, a micro crystalline cellulose and a cellulose powder cannot be added to a preparation using such an ingredient.
As a method for inactivating the reducing end of the micro crystalline cellulose and cellulose powder, the following methods may be mentioned:
(1) a method of using a reducing agent such as sodium borohydride to convert the reducing end into an alcohol;
(2) a method of using an oxidant such as sodium chlorite to convert the reducing end into carboxylic acid; and
(3) a method of chemical modification of the reducing end by enzymatic treatment or the like.                However, the methods (1) and (2) have a problem of safety, that is a reducing agent or an oxidant remains in a micro crystalline cellulose and a cellulose powder finally obtained; and a problem of functional deterioration, that is depolymerization proceeds during the reaction, and it lowers moldability. In the method (3), when a sugar chain is added by transglucosylation mediated by a transferase or a hydrolase, in most cases, the transglucosylation proceeds from a non-reducing end. Therefore, it has been considered that it is impossible to enzymatically perform chemical modification of the reducing end of a micro crystalline cellulose and a cellulose powder.        
On the other hand, with a recent increase of heath concern, synthesis etc. of oligosaccharides having various physiological activities and useful glycosides using a glycosyl transferase or fructosyl transferase have been aggressively studied. Consequently, saccharides such as coupling sugar, fructooligosaccharide, palatinose, and α-glycosylstebiocide have been put into practical use as a substance having properties as anti-dental caries and a Lactobacillus bifidus proliferation factor. A levan sucrase produced by Bacillus subtilis and a β-fructofuranosidase produced by a mold such as Aspergillus niger, Penicllium oxalicum, Penicllium frequentans, and Penicillium sp. K25 are known as a fructosyltransferase.
Patent Document 1 and Non-Patent Document 1 describe a transglucosylation mediated by β-fructofuranosidase produced by Arthrobacter sp. K-1 stain. However, as an example of β-glucan, they only describe that a product produced from cellobiose having two glucose residues as a substrate. These documents do not describe an usefulness of a product such that a fructose is bound to β-glucan having three or more glucose residues and a product wherein fructose is bound to the reducing end of a micro crystalline cellulose and a cellulose powder; more specifically, an usefulness such that they successfully make a preparation using an active ingredient (which has not yet been able to use) having an amino group, by inactivating the reaction with an active ingredient while maintaining its inherent natures such as moldability and disintegrability.
Patent Document 1: JP-A-4-91795
Non-Patent Document 1: Denpun Kagaku, Vol. 39, No. 2, p. 135-142 (1992)